{"id":15397,"date":"2019-01-31T12:44:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T16:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=15397"},"modified":"2019-01-31T12:44:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T16:44:38","slug":"reaction-to-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=15397","title":{"rendered":"Reaction to Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life on Mars<\/em> by Tracy K. Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grade: none<\/strong><\/p>\n

I added Life on Mars<\/em> by Tracy K. Smith to my list of books read in 2019, but it felt almost dishonest to do so. Yes, I did read the entire collection. I even reread most of the poems and gave them some additional thought. But I couldn’t make very many of them speak to me. This felt like a failure on my part. How could I not enjoy a Pulitzer-winning collection of poetry by the Poet Laureate? How could I fail to understand some of the poems? Did I not read them properly? Am I lacking what it takes to appreciate poetry?<\/p>\n

This reaction doesn’t surprise me. I’ve had similar reactions to poetry in the past. These feelings of failure are what have always<\/em> pushed me away from poetry.<\/p>\n

But it’s a reaction that doesn’t make sense. I haven’t immediately liked or immediately understood every prose work that I ever encountered either. I never took that as a sign that prose “just wasn’t my thing” or that I lacked the ability to understand it.<\/p>\n

So I’m going to continue my efforts to read and enjoy poetry. I’m not going to give up just because I don’t like a poem, or a collection of poems, or any one poet’s particular style. I’m going to continue reading at least a poem a day and see where that takes me.<\/p>\n

And, for the time being, I’m not going to give grades to collections of poetry. A grading system only works if you know what you do and do not like and have seen enough of both to know where the extremes lie. So Life on Mars<\/em> does not get a grade, at least for now. Maybe I’ll revisit it someday, after I’ve experienced more of poetry’s extremes, and see how it suits me then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith Grade: none I added Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith to my list of books read in 2019, but it felt almost dishonest to do so. Yes, I did read the entire … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15397"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15397"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15421,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15397\/revisions\/15421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}